DE 90 17 861 U1 discloses such an angular-contact antifriction bearing and establishes the generic type. This angular-contact antifriction bearing is designed as a double-row tapered roller bearing in O arrangement. It essentially comprises an outer bearing ring and an inner bearing ring and a number of tapered rollers which roll between the bearing rings in two rows next to one another on the raceways of the bearing rings and are kept apart at uniform distances by a respective bearing cage. In this case, the outer bearing ring is of one-piece design, whereas the inner bearing ring of the tapered roller bearing is axially split and comprised of two individual rings. With the fitting of the bearing in machines or the like, the individual rings are usually positioned relative to one another by an interference fit on a shaft in such a way that production-related tolerances during the production of the individual parts of the antifriction bearing are compensated for, and defined axial prestress is produced between the tapered rollers of both rows. This axial prestress enables the bearing to roll free of play to the greatest possible extent under load.
The measures for defining the degree of the axial prestressing of the individual rings of an axially split bearing ring relative to one another, which measures were known up to the time of the application of DE 90 17 861 U1 and are still customary today, were in this case either to grind down the end faces of the touching end faces of the individual rings in an appropriately dimensionally accurate manner or to grind down in a dimensionally accurate manner the end faces of a separate distance ring arranged between the individual rings and then to join together all the individual parts in an accurately fitting manner. However, since these measures only made it possible to compensate for the tolerances occurring during the production of the individual parts of the antifriction bearing and did not take into account the tolerance variations of the shaft to be equipped with the antifriction bearing, DE 90 17 861 U1 additionally proposed to arrange a distance ring, consisting of two ring segments, between the individual rings of the axially split bearing ring. In this case, one ring segment of this distance ring is determined in its width in such a way that it takes into account the tolerances during the production of the antifriction bearing, whereas the other ring segment is adapted in its width to the tolerance variations of the shaft.
In practice, however, it has been found that such compensation of tolerances or the achievement of defined axial prestress between the rolling elements by joining the individual rings of the axially split bearing ring to one another, both with and without an inserted distance ring and with a multi-piece distance ring by an interference fit on the shaft, involves considerable difficulties, since the high setting forces required for the interference fit not infrequently result in an elastic deformation of the individual rings of the axially split bearing ring up to their raceways, and the desired play between the rolling elements of the inner bearing ring is usually not reached due to this elastic deformation. As a result, the rolling elements are not prestressed in a defined manner but are adversely restrained against one another, so that jamming of the rolling elements on the ring flange of their raceway and subsequent increased wear of the bearing right up to failure of the bearing may occur. In this case, a basic cause of the usually imperfect prestressing of the bearing fitted on the shaft is the fact that, although the bearing manufacture can dimensionally produce all the individual parts of the bearing in such a way that the individual rings or the axially split bearing ring or the rolling elements of both rows in the fitted state of the bearing ought to theoretically have ideal axial prestress relative to one another, the rolling elements actually only rarely have such defined prestress, since the bearing is assembled by the user himself.
A conceivable improvement of this state would therefore be to already connect together the individual rings of the axially split bearing at the bearing manufacture by means of clamping rings of U-shaped cross section, as disclosed, for example, by DE 84 29 899 U1 or by DE 36 21 381 A1. However, such clamping rings, which are usually made of thin metal sheets or of plastic, are not suitable for producing or for maintaining defined axial prestress between the individual rings of the axially split bearing ring or between the rolling elements of both rows as they roll on their raceways.